


The Batgirl Cure

by HeWhoIsMany



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Gender or Sex Swap, Transformation, Twinning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeWhoIsMany/pseuds/HeWhoIsMany
Summary: Unbeknownst to many, Bruce is still trying to find some way to restore Barbara Gordon's ability to walk. His latest attempt is based on a mutagenic plant grown by Poison Ivy, but an accident in the Batcave leads to something Bruce wasn't expecting at all.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	The Batgirl Cure

There was no way to misinterpret the computer’s results.

“TRIAL FAILURE”

Bruce felt like punching a wall, hard. Unfortunately, he’d already injured his hand while fighting a gang of hoodlums, all of whom had patterned themselves after the Joker. They were in the lock-up at the precinct now, but if they weren’t actually affiliated with the criminal clown, there was a good chance they’d be dead before they left police custody.

The thought of that lunatic soured Bruce’s stomach. It had been almost a decade since he’d broken into Commissioner Gordon’s house and, in the process, shot Barbara. The first Batgirl, crippled. She’d refused to stop helping, turning her mind to the fight, becoming Oracle, but Bruce couldn’t let it go.

She hadn’t been injured while out fighting with his symbol on her chest, but that didn’t matter. The only reason she was hurt was because he had failed to stop, failed to contain, failed to  _ end _ the Joker. He still wasn’t willing to go that far, but the graveyards he left filled in his wake meant the possibility couldn’t leave Bruce’s mind.

But killing him wouldn’t bring Commissioner Gordon’s wife back to life. It wouldn’t repair Bruce’s relationship with his son Jason, frayed from years apart when the second Robin was thought dead. It wouldn’t let Barbara walk again.

So every so often, Bruce turned his genius-level intelligence towards finding a way to restore Barbara’s legs to her. She wasn’t aware, of course. Barbara would have stopped him. She made it clear that she’d rather live the way she was than use some advanced science to cure her, when that wasn’t available to the tens of thousands of other people in the country with similar injuries.

It was ridiculous. Which was why Bruce was quietly ignoring it. He’d collected more than enough DNA from her apartment for several cell cultures, all without her awareness. But he was beginning to run out of options.

Now that his cellular regeneration serum had failed, an improvement on an old recipe from Doctor Death, Bruce only had one avenue of experimentation on his table. It was a plant, one grown by Poison Ivy for her girlfriend. Harley had told Bruce, over one of their ex-med school coffee hangouts, that it had been an early present in their relationship, and the plant had altered Harley so that she couldn’t be poisoned. More than that, it had somehow rid her of all scar tissue, and fixed a number of small issues with her body.

It had restored her to the peak of her condition. It was exactly what Bruce needed.

It was also close-to-dead, and barely a trace of the pollen used for the effect was left in it. So, Bruce had done the sensible thing and cloned it.

Without Ivy’s green thumb, it was taking months to grow, and it would frequently grow sick when the conditions weren’t completely perfect. It was frustrating, to say the least, but it was beginning to look like the real solution.

As Ivy had done with Harley, Bruce had injected the plant in its infancy with some of Barbara’s DNA, so it had a blueprint from which to produce the cure. Soon, it would be ready, and Bruce could find a way to introduce the pollen into Barbara’s system.

In the deepest part of the Batcave, Bruce withdrew to the spot where he’d hidden the plant amongst various projects from the past and souvenirs from his rogue’s gallery. It was close, so close now. Perhaps, for the first time in who knew how long, he could remove just a bit of the guilt he lived with every day.

But as he was inspecting the plant, removing it from it’s miniature greenhouse incluse to check it for aphids or other pests, something pumped into his legs from behind. The force wasn’t much, but it was a lot more than Bruce was expecting, causing him and the plant to fall forward onto the table.

He felt the plant crush under his weight, and in a panic he looked down to see it was assuredly dead. A roiling rage brewed in Bruce’s chest. What had caused him to fall?! He looked around and saw a small black puppy run away, as if it knew how much the human was not happy to see it.

“Ace,” Bruce growled under his breath. “I’ll need to have a talk with Damien...” His youngest son has been told, time and time again, that his dog was not allowed in the Batcave. But Damien had a hard time respecting rules from anyone, including his own father. He’d have to have a talk...no, better idea, send Cassandra to talk to him instead. His only daughter seemed to be the only one in the family who Damien was intimidated by.

Turning his attention back to the plant, Bruce hoped it could possibly be saved, but there was no chance. It didn’t take a botanist to tell that the lump of green goo was not going to recover from the injury. Some of it had gotten onto Bruce’s stomach, as well, his mistake for coming down there wearing casual wear.

He began heading back into the mansion, ready to stop on the way to start a new clone of the plant from scratch, when he suddenly felt his legs go asleep. It came on so suddenly, so violently, that Bruce almost toppled to the ground. It was only thanks to his honed instincts that he was instead able to fall into a nearby chair, letting out a huff of relief in the process. Had his voice always been that high? He shook his head, something to worry about later.

The obvious primary concern was the numbness creeping up his legs into his torso. For a panic-stricken moment, Bruce considered calling out for help. From his children, from Alfred, maybe even from his cousin Kate if she was visiting. But he stuffed that idea down. They couldn’t see him like this, see him weak and vulnerable. He was the Batman. He had to appear invincible, unflappable. This was clearly genuine logic, and now the ridiculous pride of a billionaire martial artist.

As one would expect from the World’s Greatest Detective, Bruce started thinking through what was happening. Clearly, something had caused this paralysis, though why it was starting at the lowest extremities of his body and going up from there wasn’t clear. Could he have injured his spinal cord from the fall? Unlikely, though he had to admit a wry irony in the idea that Bruce had given himself a near-identical ailment to the one he was trying to cure in Barbara.

No, far more suspicious is the plant itself. But Harley hadn’t mentioned anything about numbness...then again, why would she? The incident had been years ago, she might have even forgotten. Checking in with the progress, now more than half his abdomen was completely numb, and the wave wasn’t stopping.

Any thoughts about just how the plant may have caused this had to be put on the backburner, however, as Bruce realized his socks felt roomy. It was that strange observation that led him to notice that he could feel with his feet again, though his legs were another story.

But that just raised new questions. Why were his socks roomy? They should have fit perfectly, he’d had them custom tailored to his exact foot size. Curious, he used one foot to pull the other out of it’s sock, revealing that his foot was definitely smaller than it once was. It was also more slender, and had less hair. What did this...?

A chill went up Bruce’s spine as he lost any feeling in his torso altogether, and his arms were next. That wasn’t what he was curious about, however. By this point, he’d regained nearly all the feeling in his legs. Right away, he knew his pants were loose, so much so that they’d struggle to stay up if he stood, belt or no belt.

He went to feel his leg with one hand, to see how much it had changed, only to realize he couldn’t, his arms wouldn’t move. With no other option he used his foot instead. Not the best way to feel around, but enough to confirm his legs were smaller than before. Softer, too, there wasn’t nearly as much muscle as there should have been, though there was also clearly some strength in them.

There was no other option, Bruce needed a mirror. Now that he could stand, Bruce got out of the chair and carefully walked, slowly, through the cave, to the nearest mirror he had. It was a gift from Wally West, with specially treated glass that prevented any Mirror Masters from using it as a portal into the Batcave.

By the time he got there, his pants were almost past his knees, revealing a very loose pair of boxers underneath. Bruce was losing height, too. When he’d entered the cave, his top had bared more than a hint of his abs to the cold air of the subterranean lair. Now the shirt was hanging off him, hiding his torso at large.

What it wasn’t good at hiding was what changes his abdomen had been going through. The feeling was starting to come back, enough that Bruce could feel, even without using his still numb arms and hands, that his waist had cinched in, even as his hips got wider. More than that, fat had built up under his pectoral region, forming what he could not deny were a modest pair of breasts.

With the numbing sensation rising into his neck and face, Bruce realized the mirror let him watch the changes happen in real-time. The adam’s apple disappeared from his throat, just as the whole area became more slender, but the real changes came to his face.

Gone were his hard cheekbones, his sharp jawline, and the hint of stubble beginning to form on his chin. Now, his face was smooth, soft, and round.

And familiar.

Even before his eye color started to change, into green, and his short black hair grew out, the hue shifting to a bright red none too different from the Flash who gave Bruce that mirror, Bruce was able to clearly see that the face he had was that of Barbara Gordon.

It was that revelation that made him understand everything.

The plant was supposed to return someone to their peak condition, while giving them new immunities to various maladies. The goo from the crushed plant must have had more than enough of the already developing pollen in it, and it absorbed neatly into his exposed skin. But instead of making him a perfectly fit version of himself, it made changes based on the DNA it was given, that of Oracle.

The strange thing was, Bruce was not overly concerned. This was far from the first time he’d been forced into some other body-shape. In fact, it wasn’t even the first time it had been a woman’s. He even had more than a few dressers full of traditionally feminine clothes, in various sizes, just in case something like this happened.

Easily avoiding any of the other occupants of the mansion, Bruce left the Batcave, careful just in case his legs gave out on him again, and found one of the rooms he needed. He’d gotten undressed and put on a bra, panties, and some pants right when the door opened.

Standing on the other side, completely surprised by what he was seeing, was the worst possible person it could have been: Dick Grayson, Nightwing, the eldest son. “Oh! Sorry, Babs, didn’t know you were...” His voice trailed off as he looked closer and Bruce, eyes widening as he realized just what he was looking at. Tears in his eyes, he gasped, “You’re standing. Oh my god you’re standing!”

The excited hero closed the distance in an instant, crushing Bruce in a tight hug as he started to openly cry. This was awkward for Bruce, to say the least, for many reasons.

Number one, the hug was squishing the boobs on Bruce’s chest, and it had been a long time since he’d had to feel that.

Number two, there was a stupid warm fluttering feeling in his chest, likely some residual chemical reaction in Barbara’s brain chemistry from the fact that she and Dick used to date.

Number three, this was his son, and feeling anything like that was  **incredibly** inappropriate.

Number four, he was about to half to explain the truth of the situation to Dick.

That last one was honestly the worst of the lot. Over the years, despite their closeness, Dick and Bruce had wavered a lot. They were in a good place now, but something like this could be the thing that led him to stop speaking to Bruce for another few years.

Still, there was no way in hell that Bruce was going to pretend to be Barbara. Bruce had that much good sense, at least. Deciding to just rip off the band-aid and do it quickly, Bruce stepped back from Dick’s embrace, face stoic, and told him, “Dick, I’m not Barbara. It’s Bruce.”

There was a tense pause as Dick blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Then, to Bruce’s shock, he laughed. He laughed so long, in fact, that it started to get annoying. When he finally stopped, tears in his eyes for a different reason, Dick barely managed to say, “Oh man, that’s priceless. So, who did it? Huge Strange, Mad Hatter, Professor Pyg?” They were all good guesses, Bruce had to admit.

But none of them were true. Unable to meet Dick’s eyes, Bruce told him, “None of them. I caused it, by accident.” Was he blushing? Stupid body and it’s stupid feelings for Dick ‘I’ve dated half the superheroines in the Teen Titans’ Grayson. “Do not tell anyone about this.” It was hard, but Bruce did his best to put his full I’m Batman power into those words.

For a moment, it looked like Dick might balk at the request, but instead he relented, though he looked sad about it. “Sure thing. Man, I was hoping to get Cass to laugh. Just for science’s sake, to hear what kind of noise she’d make.” But then he dropped the jokes and took the matter more seriously. “So, what did this? Some enhanced disguise technology?”

“No, I was trying to cure her paralysis, but Damien’s dog knocked me into the specimen.” For some strange reason Bruce could not understand, Dick raised a hand to cover his face. Was this one of those ‘meme’ things? “I should be able to reverse this within the day, but no one is allowed entry into the Batcave until then. While I’m working on that, you’re in charge of protecting Gotham.” That was standard procedure, after all.

Dick nodded his head, but then just as he was about to walk away, he turned to ask one last question. “So, Bruce, fashion question: why a lace bra?”

Looking down at what he’d picked out, which was black and did indeed have a lace trim, Bruce didn’t understand the question. “I thought it looked good on me,” was all he could think to say, before heading back into the Batcave to work on returning to normal. Though perhaps, Bruce thought, maybe indulging in a snack would be a good idea, while he was still in Barbara’s body. He hadn’t eaten in a while, and if his file on Barbara was right, her favorite flavor was Rocky Road.

* * *

Somewhere else in Gotham, far from the prying eyes of the law and the Bat, a green-skinned (ex?) supervillainess sharply sat up in bed. Pamela Isley, known to most as Poison Ivy, went from asleep to wide awake in seconds. Her girlfriend, still cuddled up to Pamela’s chest and still mostly asleep, mumbled blearily, “Where’s the fire?”

Eyes wide, yet not really seeing the room they shared, Pamela tried to put what she was feeling into words. “I feel a great disturbance, as if one of my plants were suddenly...silenced. Something had happened.” Half an hour later, when she was feeling more present, Pamela would realize that perhaps psychic connections to all the plants she grew wasn’t actually the best idea.

Unconsciously, Pamela reached down and ran a hand through Harleen’s blonde hair, which led to the still sleepy girl making a pleased sound. “That’s nice, but it’s bedtime.” Pamela nodded absently, laying back down even as she stayed awake. Someone had done something to one of her baby’s, and she was going to find out what.


End file.
